To All DP Supporters and Opponents, Just A Simple Question

I have a simple question and would like it to be explained to me:

Why do we kill people to show other people that killing people is wrong?


I will be waiting for responses.

on edit:
I do not approve of what Tookie did, it was wrong, period. This is just a general question.

It was originally promoted as a deterant to others who would commit crimes. Death is supposed to be the worst penalty a person can suffer, and that penalty is saved for the worst of the worst.

I've even had a few of DU's, er, less evolved posters quote that to me when I've come out against it.

Well, we know it has no deterrent value, it's more expensive than life in prison, and it's applied only to the poorest, not to the rich men who hurt millions.

It's wrong. There is no justification for it beyond a primitive blood lust for revenge.

And yes, I speak as someone who survived the murder of a family member.

I've never personally known anyone who had a family member who was murdered. I have always been against the DP because I happen to think it's a worse penalty to know you have to spend the rest of your life in prison. However, I also know I turn into a very vindictive person when somebody harms one of my kids, my husband, a close friend, or even my dog!

I've thought about this quite a bit, and I have to ask you...didn't you want to see the murderer dead?

Maybe you're a better person than I am, but I can't help but want payback.

I wanted him locked up where he could never do it to anyone else. I was sixteen at the time.

I got my wish. He died in prison. He never did it to anyone else.

What if "Tookie" escaped and killed again?
He has nothing to lose

in the general population. He's a famous name and the Crips, which he founded, have undoubtedly caused a great deal of grief to the majority of the prison population.

It's just not our job to kill him. It's our job to lock him up securely.

It's a bloodthirsty, primitive concept---an eye for an eye. Very barbaric.

It's wrath, revenge, retribution. (and racism and classism in this country.)

Really, any other argument defies logic and isn't supported by history or statistics.

an eye for an eye. Its revenge. Its expedient. No matter what a bastard someone is, to kill them for killing someone is crap.

of the phrase according to my mother. I can't recall it at the moment but doesn't it say somewhere that "Revenge is mine, sayeth the lord" ????

was: ""You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' But I tell you, don't resist him who is evil; but whoever strikes you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also. If anyone sues you to take away your coat, let him have your cloak also. Whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to him who asks you, and don't turn away him who desires to borrow from you." Matthew 5:38-42

Yeah, everyone remembers the eye for an eye quote (written in the old testament) but we have become a ("Christian" - my ass) nation that can't seem to remember that what Jesus (oh he they claim is the "reason for the season" and the very foundation of the Christian church) said was "Turn the other cheek".

parole judges would stop paroling convicted murderers, with life sentences, after 10 to 20 years to save tax dollars....

do chain gang work like it has been done in years past.


What a great way to do a highway beautification project, with free labor.

it makes my brain hurt when I try to find reasoning behind the Death Penalty when I ask myself this question. I seen it on a bumpersticker once after someone had posed the question to me and it has stuck since.

I guess I am just trying to find the answer.

It's simply pointing out a logical fallacy in your reasoning- and you don't like it!

It's a question that's meant to make your brain hurt because it shows the circular logic behind an "eye for an eye".

There is no moral standing behind the death penalty. I have more respect for those who simply admit it's basis is revenge.

five years on probation for shoplifting does nothing to deter shoplifting.

what is going to happen to them when they get caught.

If they are going to commit crime, they are going to do it regardless of the consequences.

There are a lot of crimes I won't commit because of the consequences if I got caught.

I won't drive after even ONE beer.

Although it's VERY profitable, I won't sell drugs.

I won't rob anyone or any place.

Maybe that makes me a bad person to even think of doing any of those things, but the last thing I ever want to face is the inside of a jail cell! So it's definitely a deterrent.

I'm not sure about the crimes that are punished by the DP. Perhaps even it is a deterrent to an angry husband/wife to take what could look like the easy way out of a bad thing.

For angry vengeful people who appear to hate everything, there's probably no deterrent at all.

not identifying the strawman, not identifying the premise.

But it certainly helps dragging out the discussion.

The only time I have brought it up is when others ask what message will be sent to society if we kill someone who is (or claims to be) reformed.

Deterrence isn't really one of my main arguments in favor of the DP. Both sides waste too much time batting that one back and forth.

Is jail a deterrent? Why don't people take the argument down that road and see what conclusion they reach?

No, Jail isn't a deterrent either. Neither is the DP.

A criminal will commit crime, no matter what.


But if you want to keep a man/woman/child from becomming a new criminal, then you need to go to the source (biggest source) of the problem, and that is poverty/abuse & neglect/ignorance.

My question is, if someone is against the DP because it's not a deterrent then what is your position on all the other aspects of "legal punishment" that aren't deterrents?

That anti-DP argument never seems to be applied to the system as a whole. It's disingenuous because (1) it's never applied to the system as a whole, and (2) even if the DP were a deterrent these people would still oppose it.

I say, if you're anti-DP, stick with your moral objections. Those are the ones that hold up. All this other crap doesn't.

and I do not wish to have my tax money pay for state sanctioned killing.


Killing is killing, no matter who does it. Two wrongs never made a right.

Is incarceration (holding somebody against their will) an appropriate punishment for kidnappers (those who hold somebody against their will)?

or are you just being a smartass?

it's the logic behind it.

And, it gives the illusion that the state is "protecting" us. Much like invading other countries and killing the inhabitants provides the same illusion.

I can see no other rationale for capital punishment that's supported by the facts. The death penalty seems to be meted out according to a scapegoat process - even those who sacrificed goats never slaughtered the whole herd.

Consider the fact that Texas had 37,879 murder convictions between 1976 and 1998, but 'only' 776 Death Sentences meted out in the corresponding period between 1977 and 1999. Those cases receiving Death Sentences were not the "most heinous"; instead, the correlation was stringer according to the race of the victim(s), the race of the murderer, the "luck of the draw" (in prosecutors and juries), and whether or not the accused plea-bargained.

When I consider this, I cannot subscribe to any rationale for meting out the Death Sentence other than some Hushpuppy Quota that's designed to quell public blood-lust and anxiety. It's noteworthy that states wallowing most in capital punishment tend to be those wherein the degree of ethnic mix has collided with some capacity for racial tolerance. Even in California, the regional differences are remarkable. Liberal San Francisco County has all but eliminated the death penalty, while conservative Kern and Riverside Counties mete it out at double the statewide rates. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that death penalty advocacy is an inherently conservative appetite - one that's pandered to by unprincipled right-wing politicians.

Although I haven't looked into it, I think that I could safely wager that the death penalty here in "liberal" Washington is inflicted far more often east of the Cascades in the Red "traditional American values" counties, than in the tree-hugging, peacenik, western counties.

While I have little sympathy for the likes of Tookie Williams, I have even less for the supposed "good" people who advocate killing by the state and decorate it with pious and spurious morality.

I am not a proponent of the death penalty but if I were that would be my only justification...

If you say "Lock them away forever" Then what about the person that has to guard them? What do we do when they kill the guards?

... committed by those imprisoned for murder as compared to those imprisoned for other than murder. While you're at it, produce the facts about murders committed by those waiting years and years before being put to death.

I'll await the citations with great interest. (I'm not interested in anecdotes.)

be just as inappropriate?